Structural issues on the portuguese fig production: recent developments

Fig production evolution registered an enormous decrease in Portugal on the last decades. In what concerns any agricultural production and its evolution we have to look to the structural issues affecting the culture trying to understand what is going on and where to act. This paper will begin to show the decrease on Portuguese fig production, according to FAO statistics. Then, we will look to this evolution in parallel with the evolution of farm structure on the last decades that has been quite strong, in Portugal, even if in what concerns farm area and the distribution of farms among area classes there has been only slight modifications. The population evolution is also a matter of importance and we will try to characterize the Portuguese agricultural population, in what concerns educational level and age and then move to fig producers, trying to understand what is the age and educational level of those who produce rig in Portugal. Finally, we will briefly focus on the economics of production. As a conclusion, there will be some appointments on the fig production future in Portugal.

Combined disaggregation of agricultural land uses, livestock numbers and crops' production: an entropy approach

This paper presents several combined agricultural data disaggregation models in order to recover the farms' land uses, the livestock numbers and main crops' productions. The proposed approach estimates incomplete information at disaggregated level through entropy, using an information prior, and generating information for a combined calculation use of data in the estimation of other variables. The models were applied to the region of Algarve, to some rural pilot areas (Salir-Ameixial-Cachopo and Alcoutim) for livestock data, since this data in some Algarve's inland areas is needed for a European forest fire prevention project, and to the agrarian zones in a more complex framework. The results are promising. They were validated, in cross reference to real data, having proven to be valid and reliable. The total error was small and a considerable level of information heterogeneity was recovered. The total error was about 27,9% for the counties' land uses and 21% for the agrarian zones, and for the livestock it was also acceptable. The level of heterogeneity recovered was always higher than 50%, revealing some improvements regarding previous studies.

Primary production in systems subject to natural and anthropogenic eutrophication

Tese dout., Química, Universidade do Algarve, 2005

The economic effects of common agricultural policy on Mediterranean montado/dehesa ecosystem

The decoupling of CAP payments leads production decisions and resources allocation to be more dependent on market prices and competitive advantages. The objective of this paper is to assess the effects of CAP trends on the montado/dehesa traditional ecosystem of Mediterranean regions in terms of farm income, land, labour and capital. A positive mathematical supply model disaggregated by the montado agro-forestry production systems of the Alentejo region in southern Portugal is developed. The results show that decoupling payments of CAP have negative economic effects on agricultural activities and resource use. Agricultural income increases with single farm payments but the foreseen increases in prices do not compensate the loss of the Agenda 2000 area payments in terms of competitiveness. These results reinforce the need to promote alternative agricultural and non-agricultural activities and policies in Mediterranean rural European areas and regions. (C) 2011 Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.